Laura - March, 2013
Hedonism II- March 15-24, 2013
Another Hedo Amigo trip is in the books, and it was another great one. We arrived on a Friday midday this year, to give us a day or so to unwind before the high gear partying began. There were already a few Amigos on property who gave us a great welcome, as did “concierge” Serena, who we have known since she was a bartender at Hedo III and greeted me with, “Laura, you’re disappearing!”- a great payoff to nearly one year’s worth of Weight Watchers and my 60 lb. weight loss. Over the week, all my Amigos were just so complimentary and supportive, thank you all for the encouragement!
I won’t do the day-by-day thing, there was just too much, I’ll just hit some highlights. Bruce and I, even after our 12 or so Hedonism trips, still love to play the poolside games, and this year it was really great that, for the first time in several years, the “scheduled” EC games actually happened, and happened on time or very close to on time. Bruce jumped right in and won a poolside contest one of the first days, with the help of a sexy Amigo lady who was a great sport when he pulled her out of the pool to help, and lots of licking of rum crème followed….
In addition, we noticed that, again for the first time in years, the evening after-dinner shows all started on time or very close to on time, starting with the costume contests which moved along at a good clip with much less time spent trying to get the crowd to yell repeatedly.
Since we were at Hedo just a few weeks after the transition to new management, I am hopeful that the positive changes mentioned in the two paragraphs above, which we noticed consistently during our 9 day trip, were deliberate and will continue! In general, the staff seemed upbeat and positive, and we noticed other little things that we had not seen before, like beach chairs being systematically hauled down to the watersports area for cleaning and scrubbing, unusually quick food preparation at the nude grill, etc.
Another HUGE highlight for us was the piano bar, which had a new player named Kemar (he told us he was starting his 4th week). He really seemed to “get it”- charming, personable, kept the songs and perverted lyrics coming, encouraged and invited folks to dance on the piano (but did NOT bully anyone into it), started each evening promptly at 10:30 p.m. and did not seem to have a set ending time, just went with the flow. Eldon told us on our first evening there, “You’re gonna like the new piano player” and he was absolutely right. There’s been quite a turnover of piano players at Hedo recently, sure hope Kemar stays.
This was also the first time in all our trips that we took a full day tour off property with a company called Juju Tours. A young Jamaican, Garth, picked us up promptly at 9 a.m. and we spent a full day (together with another couple) going to Appleton Estate, Pelican Bar, and lots of little stops along the way. I wrote a whole trip report for Tripadvisor about our day out with Garth, so won’t go on and on here, but all I can say is- this was STUPENDOUS and I HIGHLY recommend JuJu Tours.
Of course, the best part of an Amigo trip to Hedo is all the old and new friends. We hardly ever ate a meal alone, you can’t go anywhere on the property without chatting with Amigos, and no one parties like the Amigos! The Monday pool party and Magic Mike contest were hilarious, Wednesday night disco under the stars around the pool (thank you, Wild Women Vacations, our Amigo travel agent, for bringing Sandman to be D.J.), the incomparable Friday Blow Out Party which just cannot be described, etc. etc. We also were honored to win the 1st ever Hedo Amigo Door Decorating contest, despite some great competing doors-we went the nostalgia route with photos of our 2005 Hedo wedding and many of the Amigo trips since then.
Already booked for Amigo 2014, ha!